Posted on 12/27/2002 12:16:35 AM PST by kattracks
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr. thanks God that he picked the six numbers that won him the $314.9 million Christmas Day Powerball jackpot, and he's putting up the money to prove it.
"The very first thing I'm going to do is go home and make out three checks to three pastors," Mr. Whittaker said. Those checks, a tithe to the Church of God, will total $17 million.
"Seventeen million in the state of West Virginia will really do good for the poor," he said, adding that the three pastors will control the money and perhaps establish a Christian school.
The 55-year-old contractor, who won the largest single-winner lottery jackpot in history, opted to take a lump sum of $170 million before taxes, instead of 30 annual installments. The lump sum is worth more than $111 million after taxes, lottery spokeswoman Nancy Bulla said.
"I just want to thank God for letting me pick the right numbers, or letting the machine pick the right numbers," said Mr. Whittaker, who claimed his winnings dressed in black and wearing a big, black cowboy hat.
Mr. Whittaker lives in the small town of Scott Depot, about 20 miles west of Charleston, and is president of three construction companies that build sewage-treatment plants and other water projects.
"I've had to work for everything in my life. This is the first thing that's ever been given to me," he said.
Mr. Whittaker said he originally thought he had lost the jackpot because the numbers came up wrong on the televised drawing Christmas night. It wasn't until yesterday morning that he realized he won.
His wife of 36 years said she plans to go to Israel.
"I'd just go to go there. It's where Jesus walked," Jewell Whittaker said.
The couple planned to travel to New York City last night.
Mr. Whittaker said he would share the rest of his winnings with his family, and may expand his business. He has a daughter named Ginger and a 15-year-old granddaughter.
Ginger McMahan said she had cancer twice and had not worked for about a year. "I was getting ready to go back to work, but I think I'm retired now," she said.
Mr. Whittaker also said he wants to help "people who want to better themselves to have a better life."
"I'm getting really excited because of the good works I can do with this money," he said.
He said little about buying luxuries for himself — aside from a helicopter he said he had had his eye on for a while.
"I have 25 people laid off right now at Christmas, and I want more work so I can put them back to work," he said. He now employs 117 persons.
He told Miss Bulla he was not a regular lottery player but he bought $100 in tickets because the jackpot was so high. He plays when it reaches $100 million.
The ticket was purchased at the C&L Super Serve in Hurricane, 25 miles west of Charleston.
Mr. Whittaker went back to the store yesterday morning to fill up on gas and buy some biscuits, as he does each day. The clerk was the one who sold him the ticket. He told her he won, but "she said, 'No, you didn't, you're not excited enough to win the lottery.' And she just pushed me out the door," he said.
"It's so just that the poorest state in America wins the biggest Powerball in history," said Bob O'Dell, a 51-year-old resident of the town that's pronounced herr' ah cun. (West Virginia's per-capita income actually was second-lowest to Mississippi's in 2000.)
The Super Serve's owner, Larry Trogdon, will get $100,000 for selling the winning ticket.
"I have a daughter getting married this summer," he told NBC.
"I guess we're honeymooning in Hawaii," said his daughter, Amy, who manages the Super Serve and is getting married next summer to a clerk at the store.
"Heck, if you're going to Hawaii, I'm coming with you," Mr. Trogdon answered, laughing.
The jackpot was the largest ever for a single winning ticket, Miss Bulla said. It also was the third-largest jackpot in U.S. history.
An unexpected Christmas Day run on Powerball tickets pushed the already whopping $280 million jackpot to $314.9 million just before numbers were drawn, making it the Powerball's largest prize ever.
The winning numbers were 5-14-16-29-53 and the Powerball was 7.
Mr. Whittaker had the option of taking a cash payout of $170 million before taxes or collecting the entire jackpot in 30 payments over 29 years. He took the lump sum and Gov. Bob Wise presented him with an initial check of $10 million.
Powerball, the nation's largest lottery game, is sold in 23 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Before the Christmas 2002 prize, the largest Powerball jackpot was $295.7 million in July 1998.
The biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history was a Big Game prize of $363 million, won in May 2000 by ticketholders in Michigan and Illinois. The second was a $331 million Big Game jackpot split between three tickets in April.
Spain's annual Christmas lottery known as El Gordo — "the Fat One" — is billed as the world's richest. This year's $1.7 billion jackpot spreads wealth among millions of people. About 10,000 numbers win some kind of prize, from $20 to $200,000.
The night of the PowerBall jackpot drawing, Whittaker said he got the wrong numbers from television. He went to bed Christmas night thinking he had matched only four of the five numbers, plus the PowerBall.
A spokeswoman with WSAZ-TV in Huntington said the station accidentally listed 11 instead of 16 in the series of six numbers. The jackpot numbers were: 5-14-16-29-53 and the PowerBall was 7.
The mistake almost cost Whittaker millions.
"I saw the next morning that the ticket had been sold at the station I buy biscuits and gas from every morning," he said. "I thought that the odds of me hitting five numbers and someone else hitting all six on tickets from the same place were astronomical. So I told my wife we should check it again."
A second look proved his intuition right.
Good thing he didn't toss that ticket........Stay Safe Katt !!
I dont understand how it would have cost him money. He knew he hit five of the numbers right, including the powerball. That nets him 100K. What was he going to do, throw the ticket out because it was a measly 100K? He would have still turned it in and learned he was rich.
So let me get this right - he gambles - and then tithes it - Id love to hear the priests rationalization in being the recipient of gambling proceeds.
Hebrews 13:5
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
I wouldnt wish the curse of big money on anyone. It is often a destructive, deadly force.
God fill this man with the supernatural strength needed to turn from this gambling sin.
Not all Christians believe buying a lottery ticket is a sin.
The lottery is a voluntary tax. It gives poor people a chance to pay voluntary taxes, I love it.
I volunteer to pay $2 to $4 a month, it's for education and the children . . . you know. {;o)
Scripture is also quite clear about the accumulation of wealth
Funny how you and I will be accused of legalism - rather I think you see it as I do.......a hindrance to personal holiness and piety
Ecclesiastes 5:12 The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep. 13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner,
He just ruined three churches, which were unprepared to have that kind of inflow of cash. Regular giving will drop off from everyone else, and they'll probably undertake grandiose expansion schemes that they won't be able to sustain.
Are you actually criticizing this man for tithing.........and the churches' pastors for accepting those tithes????
You forget, my friend. That isn't his money. That tithe is God's money. It's really just that simple.
I don't think I need to point out the ways these funds can and probably will be used for the Lord's work as opposed to, say, giving the same amount to Earth First or PETA or........worst of all.............the United Way.
LOL - how true
First off congradulations to the latest Powerball winner from West Virginia. I'm sure that money will do an awful lot of good.
Now, I want to pose a hypothecial question to all freepers out there. Let's just suppose the powerball winner was a diehard conservative Republican. A Rush Limbaugh dittohead if you will and when asked what he is going to do with the money he states that's he going to donate a portion of it to conservative causes like the Media Research Center, Free Republic, what have you and he talks about issues in the style of Rush Limbaugh.
If the Powerball winner was someone like that, How do you think the media would handle this story? Would they demand an inquiry to see if it was rigged or something? Given the media's softball treatment of the Democrats and liberal and progressive causes versus their blatant and deliberate mistreatment of christians and conservatives, I would be a bit dubious about how they would handle it.
If I myself were a Powerball winner I don't think I would be quite as generous to the news media as that fella was.
Regards.
Me, I don't do it, I won't play games that I know have a negative expected return.
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